Janáček’s towering Glagolitic Mass is in turns raw, triumphant and affirmational. After its Prague premiere, Janáček wrote that he ‘did not take the path trodden by slippers… we were a fresh spring breeze’. Similarly heartfelt is Strauss’ Metamorphosen, an anguished elegy to a ruined Europe in the closing months of WW2. The premiere of Torsten Rasch’s orchestration of his song cycle A Welsh Night (first performed at the festival in 2015) takes an altogether more private tone, setting lines of fond remembrance from Welsh poet Alun Lewis.